by Cecelia Hagen
i
In a bright
in a field
the breath held
the clouds scaddled
almost translucent
almost something
you could touch
if you were here
stuttering
your shirt
a sky for my hands
to seek the sun
of your heart in
if I lie
on the earth
would the rain find me
before you
ii
Wouldn’t I like to leave
wouldn’t I want to learn
to stutter
wouldn’t I welcome a few
more freckles
on my wheat-field, a yodel made manifest,
a one-way street laid plain and plainer
as the moths land, wings spread,
everything turning to seed.
iii
Maybe absence is a mirage, maybe mirage
is a kind of union.
Emptiness
declares itself like a mask,
every stone sitting on a shadow.
If I had walked, if I had strayed
or pitched my tent elsewhere. What is a tent
but a mask to hide in? If I hadn’t
asked, or answered. But these
aren’t the times for wondering what kind of solid
loaf the sun can bake
every day; you know all you have learned
and nothing more, enough to free you.
*Photo courtesy Pepius.
